The Last Thing I Saw

Ep. 383: Oliver Laxe on Sirat Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. In Sirat, director Oliver Laxe tells the story of a father searching for his daughter with his young son's help. But the milieu isn't what one might expect: a desert rave scene in an unidentified country in a world plunged into disarray and war. Premiered in Cannes last year and still in U.S. cinemas, Sirat's visceral, spiritual journey joins together the father (Sergi Lopez) with a motley crew of ravers rumbling into the desert and running into a tragedy that tends to catch audiences off guard. I spoke with Laxe recently about the film, which is nominated for the Academy Award for Best International Feature alongside It Was Just an Accident (directed by Jafar Panahi), The Secret Agent (Kleber Mendonca Filho), Sentimental Value (Joachim Trier), and The Voice of Hind Rajab (Kaouther Ben Hania). Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 382: Berlin 2026 – Bilge Ebiri on Mouse, Moscas (Flies), Everybody Digs Bill Evans Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. As the 2026 Berlinale concluded its second week, I continued my series covering the film highlights. This time I sat down with Bilge Ebiri of Vulture and New York Magazine, who was making his first visit to this festival. Among the titles discussed were Moscas (aka Flies, directed by Fernando Eimbcke), Mouse (Kelly O'Sullivan and Alex Thompson), and Everybody Digs Bill Evans (Grant Gee). Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 381: Berlin 2026 – Rachel Pronger on The Blood Countess, No Good Men, The Radu Jude Short, The Fabulous Time Machine, The Cruel Woman Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. As the 2026 Berlinale enters its second week, I continue my series covering the highlights. This time I welcome a new guest to the podcast, Rachel Pronger, critic and co-founder of Invisible Women, an archive activist feminist film collective which champions historic work by women and marginalized gender filmmakers through curation, events, and editorial. We began with a revival selection from the festival's Teddy 40 anniversary series, Seduction: The Cruel Woman, co-directed by Elfi Mikesch and Monika Treut. Then we discuss premieres from across the festival: The Blood Countess (directed by Ulrike Ottinger, from Berlinale Special Gala), the opening film No Good Men (Shahrbanoo Sadat), The Fabulous Time Machine (Eliza Capai and Daniel Grinspum, from Generation Kplus), Crocodile (The Critics and Pietra Brettkelly) and a new short film from Radu Jude, Plan Contraplan (from Shorts Program 4). Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 380: Berlin 2026 – Jonathan Romney on My Wife Cries, 17, Safe Exit, Chronicles from the Siege Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. As the 2026 Berlinale enters its second week, I continue my series of episodes covering the highlights. This time I sit down with Jonathan Romney, who is contributing as usual to Screen and the Observer. Titles discussed include: My Wife Cries (aka Meine Frau Weint, directed by Angela Schanelec), 17 (Kosara Mitic), Safe Exit (Mohammed Hammad), and Chronicles from the Siege (Abdallah Alkhatib). Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 379: Berlin 2026 – Guy Lodge on Queen at Sea, We Are All Strangers, Nina Roza, Forest High Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. As the 2026 Berlinale continues, I continue my series of episodes covering the highlights. This time I sit down with Variety critic Guy Lodge. Titles discussed include: the freshly screened Queen at Sea (directed by Lance Hammer, starring Juliette Binoche and Tom Courtenay), We Are All Strangers (Anthony Chen), Nina Roza (Geneviève Dulude-De Celles), and Forest High (Manon Coubia). Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 378: Berlin 2026 with Jordan Cronk – Rose, Everything Else Is Noise, Dust, Doggerland, Tristan Forever Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. As the 2026 Berlinale continues, I continue my series of episodes covering highlights. This time I sit down with critic and curator Jordan Cronk, founder of Acropolis Cinema in Los Angeles, and we certainly made the most of our time! Titles discussed hail from across the festival's sections (Competition, Panorama, Forum) and include: Rose (directed by Markus Schleinzer), Dust (Anke Blondé), Everything Else Is Noise (Nicolas Pereda), Doggerland (Kim Ekberg), and Tristan Forever (Tobias Nölle and Loran Bonnardot). Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 377: Berlin 2026 – David Hudson on Rosebush Pruning, Red Hangar, Dao, plus a word for Mouse Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The 2026 Berlin international film festival has kicked off, and to kick things off in suitable fashion, I sat down with the one and only David Hudson, who writes the indispensable Daily column for Criterion's Current. We chatted about the latest edition of the festival and discussed a few films in particular, including Dao (directed by Alain Gomis), Rosebush Pruning (Karim Ainouz), and Red Hangar (Juan Pablo Sallato), while I put in an early word for the very fine Mouse (Kelly O'Sullivan and Alex Thompson). Stay tuned for more! Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 376: Michael Koresky on the 2001 series at MOMI – A.I., Our Song, Mulholland Drive, Burnt Money, Atanarjuat, Fat Girl, Moulin Rouge, and more Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The year 2001 was pivotal in cinema and the world, and Museum of the Moving Image's series “2001: The Year, Not the Movie” has arrived to showcase the incredible new wok released in that year. I rang up Michael Koresky, senior curator of film at MOMI and Reverse Shot co-chief, to talk about a few selections, many of which were also formative screenings for each of us. Titles discussed include: A.I. (directed by Steven Spielberg), Our Song (Jim McKay), Mulholland Drive (Lynch), Burnt Money (Marcelo Piñeyro), Atanarjuat (Zacharias Kunuk), Fat Girl (Catherine Breillat), Moulin Rouge (Baz Luhrmann), Pulse (Kiyoshi Kurosawa), All About Lily Chou-Chou (Shunji Iwai), and In Praise of Love (Godard). The film series “2001: The Year, Not the Movie” runs February 14 through April 11 at Museum of the Moving Image. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 375: Metrograph editors Annabel Brady-Brown, Nick Pinkerton, Kelli Weston on Zelda Wynn Valdes, Paul Morrissey, and The Sound of David Lynch Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. I had fun reading the most recent issue of The Metrograph, the magazine from a cinema I frequent, so for a change from the recent festival dispatches, I sat down with its editors to chat about a few articles that caught my eye. Nick Pinkerton shares his work on the inimitable filmmaker Paul Morrissey; Kelli Weston speaks of fashion designer and costume Zelda Wynn Valdes; and Annabel Brady-Brown talks about Dean Hurley, David Lynch's sound maven and his unsettling contributions to Twin Peaks: The Return. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 374: Sundance 2026 – Eric Hynes on Carousel, One in a Million, Frank and Louis, The Lake, Time and Water Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. To wrap up Sundance 2026, I talked with Eric Hynes, director of film curation and programming at the Jacob Burns Film Center. We talk a bit about movie theaters, as we often do, and then discuss a few final movies from the lineup: Carousel (Rachel Lambert), One in a Million (Itab Azzam and Jack MacInnes), Frank and Louis (Petra Volpe), The Lake (Abby Ellis), and Time and Water (Sara Dosa). Then at the end I round up a couple of fiction films that somehow escaped the pod dragnet, including new films from Macon Blair and Gregg Araki. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 373: Sundance 2026 – Chloe Lizotte on Night Nurse, Homemade Gatorade and other shorts, Public Access Redux, plus A Rotterdam Surprise Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. To look at the remote experience of Sundance 2026, I chatted with Chloe Lizotte, deputy editor of MUBI Notebook, for what ended up being a bit of a mindbending tour through cinema's possibilities. Among the Sundance films discussed: Night Nurse (directed by Georgia Bernstein), Homemade Gatorade (Carter Amelia Davis), and Public Access (David Shadrack Smith) and Joy Bubbles (Rachel J. Morrison) from another angle. And for a final twist, we couldn't resist talking about James N. Kienitz Wilkins's newest feature, The Misconceived, freshly premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 372: Sundance 2026 – Amy Taubin on Shame and Money, Bedford Park, Filipinana, Public Access, If I Go Will They Miss Me, Who Killed Alex Odeh, Silenced Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. For the latest dispatch on the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, I reunited with Amy Taubin, with whom I recorded my first episode at the beginning of the festival. We compared notes on Sundance and what we've each seen, including several films that won awards. Among the films discussed: Shame and Money (directed by Visar Morina), Bedford Park (Stephanie Ahn), Filipiñana (Rafael Manuel), Public Access (David Shadrack Smith), If I Go Will They Miss Me (Walter Thompson-Hernández), Who Killed Alex Odeh? (Jason Osder and William Lafi Youmans), Silenced (Selina Miles), Nuisance Bear (Gabriela Osio Vanden and Jack Weisman), and Once Upon a Time in Harlem (William Greaves and David Greaves). Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 371: Sundance 2026 – Siddhant Adlakha on Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!, When a Witness Recants, Undertone, Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie, plus Buddy Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. For the latest dispatch on the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, I was pleased to connect finally with Siddhant Adlakha, a critic who contributes to several publications including Variety. Among the films discussed were Ha-Chan Shake Your Booty! (directed by Josef Kubota Wladyka), When a Witness Recants (Dawn Porter), Undertone (Ian Tuason), Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie (Alex Gibney), and Buddy (Casper Kelly). Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 370: Simón Mesa Soto on his new film A Poet Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. One of the most delightful break-outs in recent cinema is Simón Mesa Soto's A Poet (Un Poeta), a funny, dynamically shot, and quite touching portrait of a Colombian writer who's stuck, years after his early success. Actor Ubeimar Rios embodies Oscar with an unstoppable, tragicomic energy that pushes back on turning the poet into an object of self-pity in this multilayered film, as he tries to reconnect with his estranged family and encounters a student poet named Yurlady. I spoke with Simón Mesa Soto about both the comedy he embraces and the sincere feeling he achieves in tapping personal experience, as well as some filmmakers whose art and portrayal of artists have inspired him, and how the great Colombian poet José Asunción Silva figures in the film and its making. A Poet is in theaters now. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 369: Sundance 2026 – Abby Sun on Closure, Cookie Queens, To Hold a Mountain, Seized Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The Sundance Film Festival rolled out another promising lineup of documentary in its 2026 edition, and so I rang up Abby Sun, editor-in-chief of Documentary Magazine, to chat about a few of the notable titles she had seen. Titles discussed include Closure (directed by Michal Marczak of All These Sleepless Nights), Cookie Queens (Alysa Nahmias), To Hold a Mountain (Petar Glomazic and Biljana Tutorov), and Seized (Sharon Liese, about the 2023 police raid on the Marion County Record in Kansas). Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 368: Sundance 2026 – Tim Grierson on The Invite, The Weight, The Friend's House Is Here, plus All About the Money Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The 2026 Sundance Film Festival is in progress, and I sat down in Park City with festival veteran Tim Grierson who is filing reviews for Screen Daily and is also a frequent contributor to the Los Angeles Times. We spoke about a few highlights of the lineup so far, including The Invite (directed by Olivia Wilde, starring Seth Rogen, Penelope Cruz, Ed Norton, and Wilde), The Weight (directed by Padraic McKinley, starring Ethan Hawke and Russell Crowe), The Friend's House Is Here (directed by Maryam Ataei and Hossein Keshavarz), and a curious documentary I caught called All About the Money (Sinead O'Shead) about the communism-curious scion of a billionaire family fortune. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 367: Sundance 2026 – Sam Adams on Josephine, Wicker, The Moment, Kogonada's Zi Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The 2026 Sundance Film Festival is in progress, and I sat down in Park City with festival veteran Sam Adams, Slate writer and senior editor, to talk about a few highlights of the lineup so far. Among the films discussed are The Moment (directed by Aidan Zamiri, starring Charli xcx), Josephine (Beth de Araujo, starring Channing Tatum and Gemma Chan), Wicker (Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson, starring Olivia Colman and Alexander Skarsgård), and, briefly, Kogonada's briefly titled new film, zi. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 366: Sundance 2026 - Amy Taubin on the festival, plus a preview of John Wilson's The History of Concrete Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The Sundance Film Festival begins its 2026 edition, and to kick off its final, I took a look back with Amy Taubin, a Sundance veteran who has written about the festival's films and evolution over decades. She shares her thoughts on Sundance, past and present, and we trade notes on titles in this edition whose premieres we have been anticipating, including the historic Once Upon a Time in Harlem. Finally, I talk about one festival highlight premiering on opening night, The History of Concrete, directed by John Wilson (of HBO's “How to With John Wilson” fame), and Taubin reflects on the history of Sundance's vaunted Main Street. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 365: Chicago Film Society's Rebecca Lyon and Cameron Worden on The Unholy Three, Heather McAdams, Bob Balaban's Parents, Proto-Beavis and Butthead, By the Bluest Sea Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The Chicago Film Society screens wonderful seasons of features and shorts at Chicago theaters, carefully curated with printed program notes, all of which I've enjoyed from afar. I was delighted to kick off another new year of the podcast with two CFS members (and projectionists): Rebecca Lyon and Cameron Worden. Since the Chicago Film Society is between its Fall 2025 and Spring 2026 seasons, we talked about some past programming, including: The Unholy Three (the 1930 sound version), Parents (directed by Bob Balaban), ephemera collected by filmmaker Heather McAdams, home movies from the Filipino American Historical Society of Chicago, and Wes Archer's extraordinary animated short that prefigured Beavis and Butt-head. Bonus: a sneak peek at a couple of events coming up at Chicago Film Society in the spring. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 364: Live at Metrograph! Mark Asch on Eight Hours of Terror, Marty Supreme, Ella McCay, The Bridesmaid, and more Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. On a recent wintry night, I was delighted to record a very special episode of the podcast at Metrograph in front of a living, breathing audience. Joining me for this adventure was critic Mark Asch, a friend of the pod and my editor many years ago. We first talked about the movie that the audience had just watched, Seijun Suzuki's Eight Hours of Terror, a 1957 treat plucked from a previous conversation on The Last Thing I Saw. Our discussion first followed our Lower East Side setting by starting with Marty Supreme (directed by Josh Safdie) and then onto other December films, including The Bridesmaid (Paul Feig) and Ella McCay (James L. Brooks). Thank you to Metrograph and their devoted team for all their assistance and hospitality in hosting this special recording of The Last Thing I Saw. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 363: Beatrice Loayza and Adam Nayman on 2025 in movies: The Testament of Ann Lee, Sinners, Dracula, Bugonia, Eddington, Hamnet, and much more Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. For a look at the films of 2025, I'm happy to welcome back two critics who have joined the podcast together before: Adam Nayman (The Ringer) and Beatrice Loayza (The New York Times, The Nation, Criterion Collection). Among the films discussed are The Testament of Ann Lee, Eddington, Afternoons of Solitude, Hamnet, Sinners, Dracula, The Housemaid, Sirat, the latest Avatar installment, One Battle After Another, Train Dreams, and... The Electric State. Plus: Adam and Beatrice's picks for overlooked movies deserving of a second (or first) look. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 362: Bruce Bennett on Charley Varrick, The American Revolution, Technicolor Weekend at Chicago Film Society, The Shootist Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. This week I'm happy to welcome back series regular Bruce Bennett for our latest debrief. Among the films he brings to the show are longtime favorite Charley Varrick (directed by Don Siegel, subject of a retrospective most recently at Metrograph); The American Revolution (directed by Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein, and David Schmidt); and The Shootist (Siegel again, starring John Wayne in swan song mode). Bennett also talks about the wondrous annual Technicolor Weekend at Chicago Film Society. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 361: Amy Taubin on Richard Linklater's Fall Doubleheader, It Was Just an Accident, The Secret Agent, Mr. Scorsese, Cover-Up, BLKNWS, Kontinental '25 Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. As the week of Thanksgiving begins, I give thanks for... Amy Taubin! She returns to The Last Thing I Saw to discuss some new releases, including key titles that have been making their way into theaters after screening in The New York Film Festival and elsewhere. Titles addressed by Taubin include: Richard Linklater's double triumph of Nouvelle Vague and Blue Moon; It Was Just an Accident, from Jafar Panahi; The Secret Agent, from Kleber Mendonça Filho; Rebecca Miller's streaming series Mr. Scorsese; Kahlil Joseph's BLKNEWS: Terms & Conditions; Kontinental '25 from Radu Jude; the Seymour Hersh documentary Cover-Up, from Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus; and memories from the NYFF secret screening of Marty Supreme. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 360: Abby Sun on IDFA 2025: A Fox Under the Pink Moon, December, Silent Flood, The Kartli Kingdom, Air Horse One Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. In November I make my annual visit to the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), and for the 2025 edition, I sat down again with Abby Sun, editor of Documentary Magazine. Among the movies we talked about were A Fox Under the Pink Moon (directors by Mehrdad Oskouei and Soraya), December (Lucas Gallo), Silent Flood (Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk), The Kartli Kingdom (Tamar Kalandadze and Julien Pebrel), and the short Air Horse One (Lasse Linder). Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 359: Ira Sachs on Peter Hujar's Day Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. This week I spoke with filmmaker Ira Sachs about his latest movie, Peter Hujar's Day. It's a fascinating chronicle of a 1974 conversation between New York photographer Peter Hujar and writer Linda Rosenkrantz, whose asks Hujar to recount a day in his life in great detail, including visits by friends, an encounter with Allen Ginsberg (whom The New York Times assigned him to photograph for a portrait), Chinese food orders, and much else. Based on actual transcripts, it's a beautiful demonstration of craft—the actors', and the photographer and writer they play. Sachs talked about making the film with Whishaw and Hall, the apartment they shot in, the directors whose work inspired him, and the new movie he has been shooting. Peter Hujar's Day is in theaters now. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 358: Michael Leader of Ghibliotheque on The Animation Atlas Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. Michael Leader co-hosts The Ghibliotheque Podcast with Jake Cunningham, and we originally connected when my book The Worlds of Hayao Miyazaki was published. And so I was delighted to learn of The Animation Atlas, the lovely new book he and Cunningham wrote, which was published this fall. The Animation Atlas spans six continents in exploring the animation traditions of different countries through selected films, and of course I was eager to pepper Leader with questions. Leader, who is also curator of archive platforms at the British Film Institute, discusses films including Yellow Fever (directed by Ng'endo Mukii), the stop-motion work of Ladislas Starevich, KPop Demon Hunters (Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans), Bubble Bath (György Kovásznai), Ne Zha 2 (Yu Yang), Boy and the World (Ale Abreu), Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle (Haruo Sotozaki), and Time Masters (René Laloux). He also shares a few general thoughts on the global animation landscape today. The Animation Atlas is available for purchase now. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 357: Radu Jude on his new film Dracula, plus One Battle After Another, shooting his next film, and more Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. Radu Jude's latest film, Dracula, is a fervidly imaginative, joyously profane look at this enduring myth through multiple stories, riffing on past tellings, a dinner theater, Francis Ford Coppola's film, a sweatshop run by vampires, assorted AI grotesquerie, and more. As a fan of Radu Jude's work, I couldn't resist another conversation with the multiple-award-winning Romanian director of Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World. He also dug into the history of the Dracula story in Romania and shared his recent viewing and reading, including thoughts on One Battle After Another. Dracula opens in theaters on October 29. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 356: Alissa Wilkinson on The Perfect Neighbor, Is This Thing On, A House of Dynamite, Diane Keaton, Frankenstein, Sphere Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. As the fall season gets underway and movies make their way to screens and streaming, I was happy to talk with Alissa Wilkinson, a movie critic at The New York Times and author of We Tell Ourselves Stories: Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine. Among the titles we discussed were The Perfect Neighbor (directed by Geeta Gandbhir), Is This Thing On? (Bradley Cooper), A House of Dynamite (Kathryn Bigelow), and—in memory of Diane Keaton's recent passing—Reds (Warren Beatty). We also think about the prominence of movies playing off mothers and fathers in extreme circumstances, such as Hamnet, Die My Love, If I Had Legs I'd Kick You, and the postpartum-inflected Frankenstein. Plus, I ask about Wilkinson's trip to Sphere—just Sphere—in Las Vegas. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 355: Jafar Panahi on It Was Just an Accident Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. This year during the New York Film Festival, I was extremely fortunate to speak with Jafar Panahi, director of It Was Just an Accident. The story concerns a prison survivor who runs into the man he believes to be his former tormenter, leading him to take action and reconnect with others. Panahi's outstanding film won the Palme d'Or at Cannes this year, after years of government bans of one kind or another on his filmmaking and freedoms. Through a translator I spoke with Panahi about It Was Just an Accident and especially the enduring philosophical issues raised by its characters living under a repressive regime. It Was Just an Accident opens in theaters on October 15. My thanks to the translator for making the conversation possible. (Please note that because of recording circumstances, the audio of my questions is only in English.) Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 354: Robert Daniels on Good News, Anemone, Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, The Love That Remains Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. In the last week of the 2025 New York Film Festival I was pleased to catch up with Chicago-based critic Robert Daniels, who is associate editor at RogerEbert.Com and a regular contributor at The New York Times. We talked about a few movies he had seen while attending NYFF, as well as an outstanding title from the Toronto film festival that's coming up this week on Netflix. Films we discussed included Anemone (directed by Ronan Day-Lewis), Good News (Byun Sung-Hyun), Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere (Scott Cooper), and The Love That Remains (Hlynur Palmason). Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 353: Sergei Loznitsa on his latest film Two Prosecutors Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. At the 2025 New York Film Festival I spoke with Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa, whose fiction and documentary work comprise an ongoing examination of history, war, memory, and resistance. His latest film, Two Prosecutors, is set in 1937 and based on a novella by Soviet scientist and political prisoner Georgy Demidov. In the almost parable-like story, a young prosecutor, Kolev, sets out to investigate the status of a prisoner in a gulag who has managed to get a note to the outside world, but Kolev's reasoned attempts run into the full force of the Stalinist regime. Just before the New York Film Festival premiere of Two Prosecutors, I spoke with Loznitsa about the contemporary resonance of the story, his choices in shooting and locations, the incredible resilience required to survive under these circumstances, two films that he recommends around this subject matter, and what conclusions about paths forward can be drawn from this history. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 352: Kleber Mendonça Filho on The Secret Agent Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. At the 2025 New York Film Festival I was fortunate enough to speak with Kleber Mendonça Filho, director of The Secret Agent. Set during the military dictatorship in 1977 Brazil, his riveting film follows a man who must go into hiding under a new identity after running afoul of a corrupt businessman. Utterly unpredictable and mingling the rhythms of daily life and survival, as well as the machinations of violent enforcers, it was a movie I was eager to talk to the director about, written as it was under the regime of Jair Bolsonaro (later rejected and convicted). We discuss the portrayal of the protagonist (played by Wagner Moura), the role of memories in capturing the time period, how geography figures into Brazil's history, the film's fascinating den-mother character (Tania Maria), and a range of his viewing—from last week to pandemic viewing under Bolsonaro to teenage years. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 351: Pre-Code Parade with Cristina Cacioppo and Caroline Golum: Supernatural, Night Nurse, Million Dollar Legs, and more Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. For the latest episode I'm delighted to be joined by programmer Cristina Cacioppo and writer-director Caroline Golum for a celebration of pre-code films in all their anarchic, outré splendor. Cristina Cacioppo is director of programming at Brooklyn's Nitehawk Cinema where she and Caroline present Pre-Code Parade, a regular series of pre-code movies (shown on film!). We discuss titles that will show or have already shown at Nitehawk, including: the upcoming Supernatural, a psychic medium thriller starring Carole Lombard; the W.C. Fields fake-country Duck Soup-esque comedy Million Dollar Legs; and Night Nurse, the Prohibition-era working-girl classic starring Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Blondell, and Clark Gable as a sinister chauffeur. Supernatural screens October 7 at Nitehawk Cinema at Prospect Park. Caroline Golum's new feature, Revelations of Divine Love, premiered at FIDMarseille. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 350: Tim Grierson on One Battle After Another, Hamnet, Wake Up Dead Man: Knives Out 3, The Lost Bus, Hedda Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. As we look ahead to the fall with movies from Venice and Toronto set for release, I was very happy to talk about some Big Fall Films with Tim Grierson, Senior U.S. Critic for Screen Daily and a battle-tested veteran of the key festivals. But of course there was also another title that stood apart from festivals this year that we couldn't miss to talk about either: the new Paul Thomas Anderson movie. So the titles we discussed include One Battle After Another (directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, opening September 26), Hamnet (Chloe Zhao, November 27), Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (Rian Johnson, November 26), Hedda (Nia DaCosta, October 22), and The Lost Bus (Paul Greengrass, out now). Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 349: Toronto 2025: Edo Choi on The Christophers, Wavelengths, The Currents, Two Pianos, Nouvelle Vague, plus Tuner Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The 50th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival had far too many movies for a single episode, and so I'm happy to talk through more titles with Edo Choi, film programmer at Metrograph. Among the films discussed are The Christophers (directed by Steven Soderbergh), Two Pianos (Arnaud Desplechin), The Currents (Milagros Mumenthaler), Nouvelle Vague (Richard Linklater), Tuner (Daniel Roher), and a few highlights from the Wavelengths section: Morgenkreis (Basma al-Sharif), CONFERENCE (Björn Kämmerer), Rojo Zalia Blau (Viktoria Schmid), and FELT (Blake Williams). Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 348: Mark Asch on Toronto 2025: Christy, Maggie's Secret, Claire Denis's The Fence, Sacrifice Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The Toronto International Film Festival began its 50th edition, and for this jubilee year, I kicked things off with critic Mark Asch, a past TIFF correspondent on the podcast who is writing for The Art Newspaper and Little White Lies. Among the TIFF premieres discussed are Christy (directed by David Michod and starring Sydney Sweeney), The Fence (directed by Claire Denis), Maggie's Secret (directed by and starring John Early), and Sacrifice (a Romain Gavras joint). Stay tuned for more on TIFF's sprawling slate! Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 347: Venice 2025 – Jessica Kiang on Silent Friend, Duse, Cover-Up, Girl, The Holy Boy, plus In the Hand of Dante Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. For a grand finale to my episodes from the 2025 Venice Film Festival, I sat down with critic Jessica Kiang, who is writing reviews from Venice for Variety. Among the films discussed are Silent Friend (directed by Ildiko Enyedi), Cover-Up (Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus), Duse (Pietro Marcello), Girl (Shu Qi), No Other Choice (Park Chan-wook), and The Holy Boy (Paolo Strippoli), with my few additional sleep-deprived words on In the Hand of Dante (Julian Schnabel). Please note: this was recorded before the end of the festival. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 346: Venice 2025 - Jonathan Romney on L'Etranger, The Voice of Hind Rajab, Remake, A House of Dynamite Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. This week I have been busily watching movies at the 2025 Venice Film Festival, and for my latest episode, I sit down with critic Jonathan Romney, who is writing about the festival for Screen Daily and the Observer. Among the films discussed are The Voice of Hind Rajab (directed by Kaouther Ben Hania), Remake (Ross McElwee), and L'Etranger (Francois Ozon), with further thoughts on A House of Dynamite (Kathryn Bigelow) and Dead Man's Wire (Gus Van Sant). Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 345: Venice 2025: Chloe Lizotte on A House of Dynamite, Dead Man's Wire, Claire Simon, Wayne McGregor, Le Souffleur, More Late Fame Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. This week I have been busily watching movies at the 2025 Venice Film Festival, and for my latest episode, I sit down with Chloe Lizotte, the deputy editor of MUBI's film journal Notebook, and the Event Horizon columnist at Reverse Shot. Among the movies we discuss are A House of Dynamite (directed by Kathryn Bigelow), Dead Man's Wire (Gus Van Sant), Writing Life (Claire Simon), and Le Souffleur (Gaston Solnicki), with some more words on Late Fame (Kent Jones). Lizotte also shares impressions from her visit to Wayne McGregor's 3D choreographic installation On the Other Earth, in the Dance Biennale. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 344: Venice 2025: Jordan Cronk on The Smashing Machine, Late Fame, Nuestra Tierra, Below the Clouds, Barrio Triste, and more Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. This week I have been busily watching movies at the 2025 Venice Film Festival, and for my latest episode, I sit down with critic Jordan Cronk. Among the Venice world premieres we discussed are The Smashing Premiere (directed by Benny Safdie), Nuestra Tierra (Lucrecia Martel), Below the Clouds (Gianfranco Rosi), Late Fame (Kent Jones), Barrio Triste (Stillz), and Last Night I Conquered the City of Thebes (Gabriel Azorin). Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 343: Venice 2025: Guy Lodge on Father Mother Sister Brother, The Testament of Ann Lee, The Wizard of the Kremlin, Rose of Nevada Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. This week I have been busily watching movies at the 2025 Venice Film Festival, and for my latest episode, I sit down with critic Guy Lodge of Variety. Among the Venice world premieres we discussed are Father Mother Sister Brother (directed by Jim Jarmusch), The Testament of Ann Lee (Mona Fastvold), The Wizard of the Kremlin (Olivier Assayas), Rose of Nevada (Mark Jenkin), and an additional pick that I'll let Guy reveal himself. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 342: Venice 2025: Glenn Kenny on Frankenstein, Bugonia, Jay Kelly, After the Hunt, No Other Choice, Broken English, Lo Spettro Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. This week I have been busily watching movies at the Venice Film Festival, and for my first episode, I sit down with critic Glenn Kenny, who's writing for RogerEbert.com. Among the Venice world premieres discussed are Frankenstein (directed by Guillermo del Toro), Bugonia (Yorgos Lanthimos), No Other Choice (Park Chan-wook), Jay Kelly (Noah Baumbach), After the Hunt (Luca Guadagnino), the Marianne Faithfull documentary Broken English (Jane Pollard and Iain Forsyth), and a selection from the Venice Classics lineup of restorations, Riccardo Freda's Lo Spettro (The Ghost), starring original scream queen Barbara Steele. Glenn also talks about his work on the Biennale College Cinema, the results of which are screening at the festival. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 341: Amy Taubin on My Undesirable Friends, Highest 2 Lowest, Terence Stamp, Chantal Akerman, What Could Go Wrong, The Pitt Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. This week I welcome back the one and only Amy Taubin to the podcast for a catch-up about what she's been watching (and a few words about things to come). Among the titles and topics discussed are the essential new documentary My Undesirable Friends: Part One—Last Air in Moscow (whose director, Julia Loktev, Taubin recently interviewed); Spike Lee's latest, Highest 2 Lowest; the dearly departed star Terence Stamp; the upcoming MoMA series on Chantal Akerman and on Hurricane Katrina; the TV show The Pitt; and the podcast on AI from screenwriter Scott Z. Burns, What Could Go Wrong. I also throw in a couple of recently viewed movies I enjoyed. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 340: Ehsan Khoshbakht on Great Expectations, the British retrospective of Locarno 2025 Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. This week I'm reporting from the Locarno film festival, where the annual retrospective has once again been quite popular. So I couldn't pass up the opportunity to speak with the retrospective's programmer, Ehsan Khoshbakht, who also co-directs Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna and also curated Locarno's 2024 tribute to Columbia Pictures. Khoshbakht explains the basis of the series, providing fascinating insights into what fueled British postwar cinema, crosscurrents with other cinemas, and the thought processes behind film programming. Among the titles discussed (adding new ones to those already discussed on the podcast): Locarno's 1952 Golden Leopard winner Hunted (directed by Charles Crichton), It Always Rains on Sunday (Robert Hamer), The Woman in Question (Anthony Asquith), as well as a look at the director Jack Lee (Turn the Key Softly). Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 339: Jordan Cronk on Locarno 2025: Dry Leaf, Mare's Nest, Le Lac, Sorella di Clausura, Two Seasons Two Strangers Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. This week I'm reporting from the Locarno film festival, where the second week has not disappointed. I sat down again to chat with Jordan Cronk, critic and founder of Acropolis Cinema in Los Angeles. Films discussed include: Dry Leaf (Alexandre Koberidze), the follow-up from the director of When Do We See When We Look at the Sky?; Mare's Nest (Ben Rivers); Le Lac (Fabrice Aragno, aka longtime DP/collaborator with Jean-Luc Godard); Sorella di Clausura (Ivana Mladenović); and Two Seasons, Two Strangers (Sho Miyake). Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 338: Jessica Kiang on Locarno 2025: The Best of the Postwar British Retrospective + Becoming Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. This week I'm reporting from the Locarno film festival, which every year has an outstanding retrospective that's a parallel essential to the premieres of new films. To discuss this year's retro, a deftly curated tribute to British postwar cinema called Great Expectations, I'm joined by a regular guest, critic and programmer Jessica Kiang, who is filing reviews for Variety but also, like me, inhaling swathes of this retrospective. Titles discussed include Obsession (1949, Edward Dmytryk), The Yellow Balloon (1953, J. Lee Thompson), It Always Rains on Sundays (1947, Robert Hamer), Turn the Key Softly (1953, Jack Lee), To Be a Woman (1951, Jill Craigie), The Elephant Never Forgets (1953, John Krish), Train of Events (1949, Sidney Cole, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden), Passport to Pimlico (1949, Henry Cornelius), The Happiest Days of Your Life (1950, Frank Launder), Time Without Pity (1957, Joseph Losey), and Never Let Go (1960, John Guillermin). Plus, just because: a bonus, brand-new film from Kazakhstan, Becoming (Zhannat Alshanova). Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 337: Keva York on Locarno 2025: Dracula, Legend of the Happy Worker, plus The Seasons Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. This week I'm reporting from the Locarno film festival, which annually rolls out an adventuresome sale of films. For my latest episode I'm joined by Keva York, a critic and an editor of the festival's Pardo publication. Titles discussed include the highly anticipated Dracula (directed by Radu Jude), Legend of the Happy Worker (Duwayne Dunham), and The Seasons (Maureen Fazendeiro). Ambient sound is courtesy of our recording location, the lounge of the GranRex cinema, one of the festival's venues. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 336: Jordan Cronk on Locarno 2025: With Hasan in Gaza, Mektoub My Love, Blue Heron, Balearic, Phantoms of July Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. This week I report from the Locarno film festival, which annually rolls out an adventuresome sale of films. For my first episode I'm joined by Jordan Cronk, critic and programmer, who has already seen an impressive share of titles in the early days. Titles discussed include With Hasan in Gaza (Kamal Aljafari), Blue Heron (Sophy Romvari), Mektoub, My Love: Canto Due (Abdellatif Kechiche), Balearic (Ion de Sosa), and Phantoms of July (Julian Radlmaier). Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 335: Will Sloan on Ed Wood: Made in Hollywood USA about the director of Plan 9 From Outer Space and Glen or Glenda Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. This week the writer and podcaster Will Sloan visits to discuss his new book, Ed Wood: Made in Hollywood USA, a reconsideration of the filmmaker who notoriously symbolized the bottom of the barrel in movies. Sloan's book avoids the usual so-bad-it's-good look at Ed Wood and instead appreciates the strange dreamlike spaces opened up by the likes of Plan 9 from Outer Space, the “accidental” experiments of his shoe-string-budget movies, and the poignant personal resonance of Glen or Glenda and other movies with Wood's identity as a cross-dresser (as memorably chronicled in Tim Burton's Ed Wood). Plus any number of tangents and comparisons that Wood's work seems to invite through its very imperfections. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 334: Mark Asch on F1, Tour de France, American Hunter, Revelations of Divine Love, Afternoons of Solitude, plus 92 in the Shade, The Brig, and Al Green Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. This week's episode is a little midsummer night's stroll through movies with critic and bon vivant Mark Asch! This time on the show he brings together the Brad Pitt racing film F1 with his recent viewing of Tour de France and other sports broadcasts, and from there it's off to the races: Spectacle Theater favorite American Hunter (Arizal); Oblivion, also from F1 director Joseph Kosinski; Afternoons of Solitude (Albert Serra); Revelations of Divine Love, recently premiered at FIDMarseilles and previously previewed by the filmmaker, Caroline Golum, on this program; 92 in the Shade (Thomas McGuane); Big Deal on Madonna Street (Mario Monicelli); The Brig (Jonas Mekas); and the music documentary Gospel According to Al Green (Robert Mugge). Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 333: Kiyoshi Kurosawa on his new film Cloud, life, lighting, casting, and the last thing he saw Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. Cloud is the new film by director Kiyoshi Kurosawa, whose unique career includes the films Cure, Pulse, and Tokyo Sonata. Cloud follows an internet reseller (Masaki Suda) who becomes targeted for murder by a band of customers he has played a little too fast and loose with. It's suffused with the air of menace that the director excels at creating, but situated in an actual cutthroat world of extremely online internet resellers. Kurosawa has said it's partly inspired by a true story of an internet-inspired killing, and partly by his desire to shoot an action movie, particularly with characters who are (relatively) ordinary people. As a longtime fan of his work, I felt especially fortunate to speak with director Kiyoshi Kurosawa about Cloud and his work generally. Thank you to Monika Uchiyama for translation. Cloud is in theaters now and had its world premiere in the Venice film festival last fall. It was the centerpiece film at the Japan Society's annual festival Japan Cuts, where director Kiyoshi Kurosawa was honored with the Cut Above Award for his outstanding achievements in cinema. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass